A couple went out leaving their young children and their dog. They were worried, but it was an emergency and they didn't have anybody to leave their children with. When they came back they called their children, nobody answered. They went to their room and saw the dog passing by full of blood in his mouth. The dad, full of rage, followed the dog and killed him. Later, he went to the children's room and saw that there was a dead snake and the childrens were save. The dog had saved the children's life.
Anger developes a fake reality in our minds. This has led many of us to do stupid things as what happened to the dog that paid his life for saving others.
I wonder how the dad would have felt after knowing that the dog was not a killer but a hero? I also hope that he learned to count to 10 and breathe a couple of times before acting on anger again.
[ October 07, 2003, 05:12 PM: Message edited by: poly_biosis ]
Posted by Rappin' Ronnie Reagan (Member # 5626) on :
Welcome to Hatrack. I believe I talked to you in parachat. Sorry I'm not replying to the questions you raised in your post, but it's 4:37 am. Too late to think, and I have to get some sleep.
Posted by poly_biosis (Member # 5773) on :
Nice to meet you again, and get some sleep. Hope you go straight to REM.
Posted by Marek (Member # 5404) on :
Cool story, is that atrue story, or something along the lines of modern fable?
If it is true, then it is both more and less cool for variouse reasons.
[ October 07, 2003, 04:39 AM: Message edited by: Marek ]
Posted by poly_biosis (Member # 5773) on :
True story, makes you think about how we should learn to control our emotions.
Posted by Marek (Member # 5404) on :
yeah it does, and it reminds us to investigate further before dealing out punishment, and to worry firt about the victims then worry about the culprate.
I would have thought that the parents would first try to see if there children were in a state that could helped by medical attention before they worried about the dog.
Posted by Marek (Member # 5404) on :
Oh and welcome to hatrack poly_biosis, you seem like a good addition to the forum
Posted by poly_biosis (Member # 5773) on :
Thank you..Marek
Nice thoughts, if you were the dad I am sure the dog would have lived. Posted by Maccabeus (Member # 3051) on :
It may be a true story, but...
Versions of it exist all the way back to medieval times. So it can't be recent.
Posted by cyruseh (Member # 1120) on :
Ive never killed a snake, so I am not sure about this, but what is the color of a snake's blood? Is it red like ours? or is it green?
Not that it would detract from the 'moral' of the story.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
I'm more surprised that they would leave their children with the dog, I guess guilt over this probably contributed to the reaction. If you like these sorts of stories there are a whole bunch of them in a book called "Emotional Intelligence".
Posted by poly_biosis (Member # 5773) on :
Thank you for letting me know that the story is not recent.
Not recent but still true. We still are learning from the medieval times. I mean, does it actually matters if it is recent or not? The message was that we need to know how to control our emotions, so such stupid actions won't happen. I really don't pay attention to how old they are but rather what I will learn from it.
Posted by msquared (Member # 4484) on :
This story would fall under what OSC calls a TRUE story that does not tell the TRUTH. The particular story may not have really happened, but the moral and the thoughts behind it ring TRUE to us.
Nice way of defining it mssquared......we will never know if it happened or not. I learned what I learned from it, thats why I wanted it to share with others that hopefully learned as well as i did about that short story.
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
Being a passionate dog lover, my reaction would have been exactly the opposite. Find out what had caused the kids to abuse the dog so that his mouth was bloody. Dogs are always more honest than children and I would have gotten mad at the kids before I heard the whole story, not the dog.
AJ
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
Spider Robinson says thet anger is always at root a reaction to fear in his Callahan series. Not sure if I agree with always, I might if you add "almost." I do know that I almost always regret actions hastily taken in great anger.
Don't feel bad if you were taken in by an Urban Legend, poly_biosis, everyone has at one time or another. The remarkable thing is all of the cultures that have similar stories--Ancient India, Greek, Welsh, frontier America, modern times. I'm sure this has happened before in human history, probably many times a dog has been killed after protecting its family well.
And welcome to the forum!! Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
I visited Gelert's grave when I was in Wales! The story is almost certainly a fiction, but as someone said above, it's a useful fiction.
Posted by jexx (Member # 3450) on :
It's a parable, but a very good one.
Shakespeare uses a very similar parable in A Midsummer Night's Dream, with a lion and a bloody scarf. I wish I could remember more details, but I'm just not going to get my giant Globe Shakespeare down and look it up. I am home with a sick kid today and he's wearing me out. *swoons*
"analize" is bugging me, and I feel a naughty snicker coming on. I don't know why "analize" is funnier than its proper spelling "analyze", but it is.
Posted by ae (Member # 3291) on :
quote:"analize" is bugging me, and I feel a naughty snicker coming on. I don't know why "analize" is funnier than its proper spelling "analyze", but it is.
Woah, jexx! I came into this thread meaning to comment on exactly that!
Great minds think alike. . . when they are in the gutter. Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
AHHH! This has been bugging me all morning.
I knew I'd heard a different version of the story, but I couldn't remember where. Thanks for the reminder, Tristan.
Posted by Toretha (Member # 2233) on :
jexx-it was Pyramus and Thisbe. And not that similar, since the lion sure wasn't protecting anyone....
Posted by jexx (Member # 3450) on :
*snicker* at ae I can't help it, it's *funny*!!
Toretha--Aha! Pyramus and Thisbe, thank you! I kept wanting to say Tristan and Isolde (which I *knew* was wrong, but I think that Tristan's nick confuzzled my brain). Okay, not that similar, but both do have bloody-mouthed animals in them and an element of misunderstanding.
*G*
Edited because I am not a very smart person and my argument was invalid.
[ October 07, 2003, 12:33 PM: Message edited by: jexx ]
Posted by poly_biosis (Member # 5773) on :
I am sorry of having spelled incorrectly. English is my second langauge, I lived only 9 months in the United States. Came here without knowing english ( well I knew how to say Hello, Bye, and a couple of bad words).
Thank you a lot of showing me my mistakes, I hope at the end of this year I won't bug anybody with my low-level english. I would leave this Forum for feeling embarrass but I already feel kind of addicted to this forum. Also, I know there are a lot of smart people here wich I can learn a lot from.
Muchas gracias gente y mucho gusto en conocerlos a todos. Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
You are doing fine, I don't think any of the picking on grammar or spelling that goes on here is meant to be mean spirited, though sometimes it comes across that way. I've spoken English all my life and my spelling still needs help at times, though sometimes I do deliberate misspellings as puns that even here, very few people catch. Welcome to the forum!
AJ
Posted by Ryuko (Member # 5125) on :
Oh, definitely, poly. I'm sure our other ESL jatraqueros will tell you that this is a good place to sharpen your skills. And it doesn't bother us, we just notice it. Oh, and welcome. ^_^
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
Quieres hablar en espanol?
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
pb - No tengas vergüenza. Estoy seguro de que nadie aquí quería burlarse de tí. Cuando yo ví la manera en que lo habías deletreado, yo pensé que quisas era una manera inglesa de escribir la palabra, aunque, ya que lo pienso mas, veo que no lo es. Pero se que en inglaterra deletrean algunas palabras diferente de como las escribimos aqui (por ejemplo, "honour," "colour," y "analyse") y la verdad es que siempre me parece gracioso cuando lo noto. Realmente, creo que el inglés tuyo es bastante bueno--el inglés tuyo es mejor que el español mío, y ¡español fue mi primer idioma! Espero que, si te quedas, encontrarás que hay gente buena y divertida aquí, y hallarás nuevos amigos.
Por lo menos, se que a mí me interesaría aprender mas de tí.
(Si de verdad te molesta, siempre puedes abrir tu primer mensaje y cambiar la palabra )
[ October 07, 2003, 02:22 PM: Message edited by: Icarus ]
Posted by poly_biosis (Member # 5773) on :
Muchisimas gracias icarus por avisarme lo del cambiar la palabra . No sabia que esa opcion estaba presente. Tu espaniol esta muy bien, y yo no me moleste por lo que me dijieron sino aprendi de donde salio esa historia y aprendi a escribir bien analizar . De que tendria que estar molesto
Ojala que podramos aprender mutuamente muchas cosas y pasar un buen rato.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
¡Ojalá que sí!
Bienvenidos, &c. &c.
Posted by ana kata (Member # 5666) on :
Hey, I know polyb has been lurking a while and also that other people have talked to him in parachat but still I'm claiming him as someone I newbie-fished into the forums!
Welcome, polyb! I talked to you in the parachat the other day. I forget what name I was under then. (ImpenetrableMask, maybe?) But I was the one you said is good at making friends. That was so kind! Hope you stick around. There are lots of nice people here, of whom Icky is a good example.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Aw, shucks!
I don't feel especially nice today, so thanks for the kind word!
Posted by Erik Slaine (Member # 5583) on :
My wife is reading the Dune series right now, so this thread made me think:
quote:I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. --Frank Herbert
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
I'm going to put in a plug for ieSpell. I'm a native English speaker and love it. Several ESL friends have told me it's a great help too. Easy to download, easy to install, easy to use. Catches misspellings and typos -- unless you've managed to type another real word, of course.
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